Desperate Housewives (season 1)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Desperate Housewives Season 1
DVD cover
Country	USA
Network	ABC
Original runs	October 3, 2004 – May 22, 2005
No. of episodes	23
DVD Release Date	September 20, 2005
DVD Format	Widescreen, Boxset

This article contains a summary of the first season of the American dramedy television series Desperate Housewives.

The season first aired on October 3, 2004 and concluded on May 22, 2005. In addition to the twenty-three regular episodes in season one, a special, "Sorting Out the Dirty Laundry", was aired on April 24, 2005.

1 Cast
- 1.1 Starring
- 1.2 Notable guest stars
2 Ratings
3 Plot summary
4 References

[edit] Cast

[edit] Starring

[edit] Notable guest stars

[edit] Ratings

Nielsen Ranking (2004-05 U.S. TV season; based on average total viewers per episode): #4 (23.71 million viewers)^[1]

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The show opens with the suicide of Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong),^[2] who narrates the episodes from beyond the grave. Mary Alice's suicide leaves behind a mystery involving her husband Paul Young (Mark Moses), her son Zach (Cody Kasch), and a mysterious toy chest, which Paul digs out from underneath the family's pool. Ultimately, it is revealed to have contained the skeletal remains of a dead woman's body. The story unravels through Mary Alice's four friends and neighbors. Each has her own storyline that ties into the theme of being a desperate housewife: accident-prone single mother Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher) trying to find love; perfect housewife Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross), mother of two problematic teenagers, who struggles to save her marriage; married Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) tries to be super-mom to four children while longing to return to her life as a corporate executive; and materialistic, adulterous ex-runway model Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) who tries to keep her husband from finding out about her affair, and then finds out she's pregnant.

In its first season, the show reveals the mystery of why Mary Alice took her own life and the quest by a mysterious "plumber" named Mike Delfino (James Denton) to find out the fate of his former lover, drug addict Deirdre. By the end of the season, the show resolves the mystery with the revelation that 15 years ago, when Mary Alice's name was Angela Forrest, she buys the heroin-addicted Deirdre's only son Dana, and then flees with her husband Todd (now Paul) to Fairview (the town Housewives is set in) to keep the child (now named Zach) from being taken away from them. When Deirdre finds them, Mary Alice refuses to give up the child. Upon being accused of being back on drugs, Deirdre hits Paul (Mary Alice's husband) and goes to get her son. Mary Alice, shocked, murders her, checks her arm for signs of drug use (she was not), and has her horrified husband dismember the body, put it in Zach's toy-chest, and bury it where the family is building a new pool in their backyard. All this happens while a 4-year-old Zach is watching them from the staircase. What Mary Alice does not count on is that one of her neighbours, Martha Huber, learns of Mary Alice's secret from her sister, Felicia Tilman (Harriet Sansom Harris), (with whom Mary Alice had worked before coming to Fairview). After learning the secret, Martha attempts to blackmail Mary Alice. Rather than face the blackmail, Mary Alice kills herself. Later, when Paul finds this out, he kills Martha after she tells him she does not have any regrets about her blackmailing and its result. Mike (Deirdre's former lover) learns this information from Paul, whom Mike leaves in the desert (rather than killing) after Mike realizes Zach is his son. As a surprising twist, Bree's husband Rex (Steven Culp) dies of poisoning shortly after George Williams, a pharmacist in love with Bree, tampered with his heart attack medication and Bree intentionally prolonged his desperate attempt to reach medical help in a hospital. Bree's behavior is caused by the knowledge that her husband had visited a dominatrix just recently since Bree was hostile towards his needs regarding BDSM.

[edit] References

^ "2004-05 Final audience and ratings figures", Hollywood Reporter, May 27, 2005.
^

v • d • e

Desperate Housewives season one

Pilot — Ah, But Underneath — Pretty Little Picture — Who's That Woman? — Come In, Stranger — Running to Stand Still — Anything You Can Do — Guilty — Suspicious Minds — Come Back to Me — Move On — Every Day a Little Death — Your Fault — Love is in the Air — Impossible — The Ladies Who Lunch — There Won't Be Trumpets — Children Will Listen — Live Alone and Like It — Fear No More — Sunday in the Park with George — Goodbye for Now — One Wonderful Day

Teri Hatcher — Felicity Huffman — Marcia Cross — Eva Longoria — Nicolette Sheridan
Steven Culp — Ricardo Antonio Chavira — Mark Moses — Andrea Bowen — Jesse Metcalfe — Cody Kasch — Brenda Strong — James Denton

Episode list

Desperate Housewives
Episode list \| Season 1 \| Season 2 \| Season 3 \| Official site
Production	Marc Cherry \| Characters \| Actors \| Awards \| Broadcasting \| DVD releases \| Music \| The Game
Main characters	Susan Mayer \| Lynette Scavo \| Bree Hodge \| Gabrielle Solis \| Edie Britt \| Mary Alice Young Carlos Solis \| Tom Scavo \| Julie Mayer \| Orson Hodge \| Mike Delfino Andrew Van De Kamp \| Danielle Van De Kamp \| Preston and Porter Scavo \| Parker Scavo \| Ian Hainsworth
Former main characters	Betty Applewhite \| Rex Van De Kamp \| Paul Young \| John Rowland \| Zach Young \| Karl Mayer Matthew Applewhite \| Austin McCann \| Caleb Applewhite \| George Williams
Minor characters	Carolyn Bigsby \| Sophie Flickman \| Maisy Gibbons \| Ida Greenberg \| Alma Hodge \| Gloria Hodge Martha Huber \| Kayla Huntington \| Nora Huntington \| Justin \| Victor Lang \| Karen McCluskey Travers McLain \| Detective Ridley \| Art Shephard \| Noah Taylor \| Felicia Tilman \| Xiao-Mei
Locations	Wisteria Lane \| Eagle State
view • talk • edit